There is a vast amount of data available today and data is now being collected and stored at a rate never seen before. Much, if not most, of this data however is locked into specific formats that can be accessed by specific applications. This data is often difficult to access or to integrate into new applications and uses.
The Open Data Protocol (Odata) is a Web protocol for querying and updating data that provides a way to unlock data and free it from application-specific formats. Odata does this by applying and building upon web technologies such as HTTP, Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub) and JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) to provide access to information from a variety of applications, services, and data stores. Odata can be used to expose and access information from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, relational databases, file systems, content management systems and traditional web sites.